Ireland follows EU beef export trend

Marts: Irish exports of beef to non-EU countries declined by 32% during the first eight months of this year, in line with a general trend throughout the EU.

Irish exports to the Third Country markets were down 20,000 tonnes on the 2004 level, which represented a quarter of the total decline in EU exports to these markets for the period January-August 2005.

Exports from Germany suffered the largest decline at 43,000 tonnes, representing a decline of 46%. Exports from France and Italy were down by a total of 17,000 tonnes. A drop of 80,000 tonnes in exports from the EU-25 showed the decline increasing sharply for the first four months, rising from a fall of 1,625 tonnes for January to over 19,400 tonnes in April, before improving for the following two months.

Exports worsened again in July to a decline of almost 15,000 tonnes for the month.

On the import side, total imports of beef for the EU-25 from Third Countries increased by 3.4% amounting to 12,000 tonnes over the eight months.

Bord Bia points out that the largest importer was the UK at 32% of the total, amounting to an import of 117,000 tonnes, which was 1% higher than for the same period in 2004.

Italy imported 61,000 tonnes, an increase of 10% on last year. Dutch imports at 59,000 tonnes also showed an increase of 10% over 2004. Imports by France were 5% higher at 12,000 tonnes, while Germany imported 9% less beef from Third Countries.

The pattern of imports shows that beef imports were strongest in July at almost 12,500 tonnes, corresponding with the serious drop in Irish beef prices at the factories with strong supplies into the UK. Imports for February were down by 7,661 tonnes, and by 4,385 tonnes for March and were up by 9,610 tonnes for April, the second highest month.